TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Justin. I’m 23. I grew up in New York. It’s considered the project apartments where I’m from, and there’s a lack of love in the house growing up. I woke up in the middle of the night to a lot of arguments, things breaking. I was 12 years old and that was the first time I got escorted out of school with handcuffs on. I tried to stay away from church people, period. Growing up I didn’t really have those influences in my life. And looking back, I wasn’t really open to those influences either because I was in charge of my life. I started stealing at a really young age, just so I can do whatever I wanted, buy whatever I wanted, and making a lot of money in the day and still feeling empty. I’ve had everything I could have or ever wanted, but it just wasn’t enough.
I moved to Ocala in 2012. I was just bouncing around from jobs. Started reading the Bible a lot. The word, it leads to Christ. Even though I’m far from the person I used to be, I know I still have a long way to go. I want to say I feel in my heart that God isn’t done with me. Where I’m at now, it’s just learning the characteristics of Jesus and trying to become more like him, trying to love those difficult people to deal with, trying to trust in him, most importantly with everything. The church led me to the College Connect Ministry and there I met people my age. They were more serious about what was going on. They were more serious about this, about Jesus, who we’re supposed to be trying to become like.
I was looking for discipleship because I felt like that’s what it calls us to do, you know? So I found … Actually, I’ve found people that wanted to fellowship, that they want to praise God. In no way have I reached perfection now. I don’t want to ever get comfortable. I don’t want to think that okay, once I reach here, I’m safe. I think my main goal is to become as much like Christ as I can, so it’s my responsibility to pursue a relationship with Christ. He’s waiting for me, you know? He’s waiting for all of us and I’m not living my life for myself anymore.
